


Imagine Your Way Back (That's Where I'll Be)

by 777LLL



Category: Last Shadow Puppets
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Light BDSM, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Romantic Thriller, Sci-fi Element, This Really Ain't the Healthiest Relationship but
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:09:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28842909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/777LLL/pseuds/777LLL
Summary: In his dreams, Miles can't seem to escape from this hotel and the mysterious man who works there, Mark. In reality, he struggles to find traces of Alex who has decided to vanish off the face of the planet.
Relationships: Miles Kane/Alex Turner
Kudos: 10





	Imagine Your Way Back (That's Where I'll Be)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not real, but you know the drill.
> 
> I've posted part of this as a harmless short fic before, so you might find certain paragraghs familiar. I tried to list every warning I can think of (sorry please don't expect to see morally perfect human beings here) but if I miss anything triggering, let me know I can add it in the tags? Hope you enjoy x

Imagine Your Way Back (That's Where I'll Be)

*

“You’re the new receptionist, ain’t you?” asks Miles.

The man behind the bar glances up. His eyes appear to be a dark shade of oak brown in the blue-glowing lights. Miles swallows, fighting the desire to shift on his seat. He doesn’t want to be in this position, but it’s simply impossible to decipher the man’s expression. His gaze is piercing and exploring, setting Miles on edge. Finally, as Miles gets up to leave, the bartender, also the receptionist of this hotel, straightens up. A crooked smile curls up the corner of his mouth.

“How do you know I’m new?” he asks curiously, low voice smooth as silk. The question pulls Miles back.

“Well, because Lydia- you know, the one before you? She always wears that apron with the hotel logo. Kind of hard to not notice when she suddenly wears suits and grows stubbles.” Miles taps at his own jaw, grinning and taking a big gulp. He then pushes the glass away in surprise, examining what’s left inside incredulously. “I didn’t order Martini.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, it probably got mixed up with another order.” The bartender replies, but he seems more amused than apologetic, “I’ll make you a new one. Please, bear with me.”

He pulls out an apron from behind the bar, casually putting it on under Miles’ gaze. The logo reads- _Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino_. Miles hasn’t seen the Casino part yet. “What do you think?” The man gives a strange half laugh, turning around slowly to let Miles see the tangled knot he’s tied, and also, the end of the lace that's kissing the curve of his butt. Miles blinks heavily when the man faces him once again. He goes on to make Miles a Whiskey and Coke.

“Hey, you-”

“Sorry for the wait, Mr. Kane. Your drink.” A sweating glass is placed in front of him. The man then seems to remember something – he fumbles in his pants pockets, but they are empty. “I lost my badge, sorry. You can call me Mark.”

Mark flattens the bottom of his coat, and then combs through his well-coiffed hair. Miles can’t help himself. His eyes follow Mark’s fingers. “Thank you.” He coughs, reaching for the cold glass. At the same time, Mark leans forward and takes away the Martini Miles had just drank – clang – two glasses come to touch.

“Cheers, Miles.” Marks lifts his brows, smiling and draining the glass.

*****

“Tell me,” Mark says, sparing a kiss on his shoulder. A shiver runs through Miles. He hears Mark say, “How long have you been staying here, Miles?”

“Two weeks, roughly…oh fuck, I don’t remember.” He groans impatiently, pelvis bucking up once again for some relief, back scratching uncomfortably on the floor. But Mark grips his hips and pins him back down. Throwing his head to the side in frustration, Miles happens to bump into a shelf stand, so hard so that the bottom rows of dusty wine bottles all dance in their racks.

The sharp pain makes his head spinning. Miles’ face puckers up as he blinks away the tears, and finds Mark smiling. He stares down at Miles, as if he’s watching a comedy. “This won’t help with your memory loss, I guess.”

“Fuck you,” Miles mutters a curse. He doesn’t specify Mark’s name, but they are the only two in this locked storage room. It’s not hard to figure out who he’s snapping at. Mark snorts, teeth biting into the bottom lip as his grin grows wider. His gaze lands on Miles with weird satisfaction, until Miles closes his eyes under the pressure. Only then does Mark dives down to seek for his lips. His kisses are sharp and keen. Miles keeps swallowing the taste of blood back down to the bottom his stomach.

“Yes, fuck me,” Mark agrees, his voice an alluring buzz. “Come on, right here. Relax, Miles, there's no need to be so tense…”

They always find a lonely place, somewhere behind the bar, and now Miles knows every single room available. The storage room is by far his least favourite, thanks to the smell of dust lingering in the air, making his chest tight. For several times, when he pants and pushes into the man beneath, Miles panics and thinks he’s to have an asthma attack _. He imagines himself falling on the ground, half naked, twitching like a fish out of water, and still shamefully hard. He can picture his head gets cracked open at a sharp edge and there’s blood everywhere, while Mark stands right beside him, admiring the scene with a smile, probably touching himself to it._

“Ahh…Miles,” Mark speaks his name, and rewards him by grabbing his palm, pressing their body tightly together, his back heaving against Miles’ chest. His moves are stern, undeniable. Mark leads Miles’ left hand to his chest and rubs his perky nipple to the rough skin on Miles’ fingertips, his moans getting incoherent as his hole cramps Miles almost too tightly for him to move. There’re only a few seconds, the few before Mark’s orgasm, that Miles can get a hold of himself, yet he wastes the precious moment on moaning, feeling dizzy, messing up Mark’s hair and jerking his hips violently into the welcoming heat. He touches Mark’s pulse and it’s calm and confident, nothing like his own. So Miles escapes into Mark’s body, which is much warmer and softer than the man himself.

He comes hard. Miles leans against the shelf, dazed and confused, sweat trickling down from his short hair. The sweat goes cold quickly, and he now shivers for a different reason, but Mark-Mark tucks the wrinkles of his shirt into the suit pants, and casually brushes his hair back, redistributing the excessive amount of gel to eliminate the evidence of crime.

Mark walks towards him. His face is illuminated by the moonlight, and when he’s close enough, Miles can see dusts in the air dancing above his lashes. The way Mark’s glance sinks, makes him look just like _someone Miles knows–_

The name escapes from his head. Miles’ throat aches. It feels like the clothes he puts back on are now strangling him.

Mark asks, “So, have you found what you’re looking for?”

*

On some days the dining room is crowded with morning people, on other days there’s just Miles. He always takes the window seat closest to the exit. Out of habit, yes, but also because it’s the one place where if Mark looks up from his notes, he’d see Miles, sitting by himself, chewing on the rim of his teacup, staring.

Every day Miles spends hours in the dining hall, yet the scenery on the other side of the windows never leaves a mark in his memory. When Miles returns to the room, what he sees behind his eyelids is Mark, writing and musing behind the counter. Lydia never returns, now there’s only Mark, so for many times a day Miles would hear him answering the phone: _Mark speaking…_

The night falls faithfully. Once again Miles finds himself in the hotel bar, struggling to make a conversation last for more than a minute. Some woman throws him a question. “Me? I write songs.” Miles smiles back to a pair of long legs, “I make music, perform on stage.”

“What do you do outside of work?”

“Nothing fancy, love. Rest, most of the time.” he makes a wailing sound, trying to mimic the sound effect of a film that he once watched on TV _in someone’s sofa._ “Hang out with me mates. You grab a drink together and boom! Suddenly you’re writing again.”

“But you sit here on your own, all night.”

Miles snorts, brushing off her mocking remark. “I’m not on me own,” he freezes after the words slips out. _Wasn't he always sitting alone at the bar, getting fuddled with booze?_ She lays a pitiful hand on his back, which Miles rudely casts off. The throbbing pain in his temples increases by every second. “My best friend,” he yells stupidly, to himself. “Yes! He’s…he’s here with me.”

She withdraws her hand with a grimace. “And who's that?”

“He-” Miles gasps in panic. He feels like he’s about to black out. “I…I don’t know.”

A sneer is what he gets for a reply. She must think Miles has lost his mind, wasting her time on purpose, but that’s far from the truth. As she turns around, Miles also gets up on shaky legs, leaning heavily against the bar counter. When he can finally see, he finds Mark staring sharply at him, his body half submerged in shadows like a waiting predator.

“What can I do for you, Mile?”

“Stay away from me!” Miles shouts. _Isn't it weird that his cry attracts nobody’s attention?_ Without a single obstacle, Mark reaches him. His hands are colder than iced water. Miles flinches under his touch, knee colliding into the white marble framing.

Mark asks again, “What do you want, Miles? You can tell me.”

“Don’t…don’t go,” He chews on his own words and swallows them. Miles begs brokenly, without fully understanding what he's asked for. “Please don’t leave me here.”

A few minutes later they stop at the dark end of a corridor, where a steamy window circles a pale full moon. Miles trembles against the wall, desperately in need of more space. Mark takes in his embarrassing state, satisfied, and then closes in for a kiss.

“This is what you asked for, innit?” Mark touches his face, curiously investigating the tears now on his fingertips.

“No,” Miles lets out a weak protest, shaking his head violently. “No, not from you.”

“Hmm,” Mark smiles, “Then who are you looking for?”

Miles hates to realize he doesn't fucking have the answer.

+++

Miles wakes up to a pending headache. Recently, it has become part of his morning routine. Miles vaguely remembers having a bad dream, but the details get lost when he fights his way to consciousness. His mobile phone is screaming next to the pillow, seemingly for a while now. He has two missed calls.

They are both from Matt. Miles dials back and is instantly pulled out of bed by Matt’s anxious scold, even before he had a chance to say hi.

“Fucking finally! Is Alex there? Put him on the damn phone-”

Miles isn’t fully awake yet. He is naked, both the body and his emotions, therefore blindsided by the interrogation. Upon hearing Alex’s name, a cruel murder happens in his chest. Miles is afraid he might end up losing his heart if it gets pushed off the cliff like this more often.

“Easy, man.” He forces his vocal cords to vibrate. “Al’s not here. I haven’t seen him for ages.” Not since he moved back to London. Alex never called, neither did he reply to Miles' messages.

Matt grunts in frustration. “Great, fucking great."

Something in his tone speaks danger. Miles blurts out, “What’s wrong?"

"Alex vanished. I went to his house several times and it’s always empty. His mum said he never came home, so I thought he’s back in London with you. Have you talked to him on the phone, maybe?”

“No, not really. What do you mean, vanished?” Miles sinks back, unlocking his screen to put Matt on speakers. The Zoopla app is still on from another fruitless search for a property. He fell asleep stressing over the options last night. Since he is staying at Alex’s flat at the moment, Miles knows for sure that Alex has never come back. “Matt, did you check with Taylor?”

“Well, said she’d never seen a hair of him since, and told me Al’s name was forever banned in her household.” Matt sighs, “Alex was supposed to meet me on Sunday, discussing a few things about the upcoming tour, but he never showed up. At first, I thought he’s just last as per usual, you know? But then he didn’t answer his phone, and I couldn’t find him anywhere.”

“Wait, Sunday? But it’s Friday today!” Subconsciously, Miles has a weird feeling that Alex is suffering at somewhere far out of his reach, although the reasonable guess would be anything but. Panic holds him as an iron trap. Miles jumps up, his voice rising up at the same time, “He’s been off the radar for days and you only thought about telling me now?”

Matt gasps, taken back by his vitriol. “I assumed you would've at least called him once or twice, Miles. Since when do you ever need me for the news?”

Miles says nothing. He doesn’t know how to explain it, just like he no longer understands how to stay by Alex’s side and keep smiling when Alex is about to kiss someone else. Probably some miserable implications bleed from his quietness. Matt clears his throat after an awkward pause. “Sorry, mate. I know you can’t do nowt ‘bout it. It’s just I’m getting into a flap about this…Al was acting quite jumpy recently, so when he disappeared, initially I thought he just needed some space. It happened before, alright? But never for this long, and he’d at least text me or his mum. I was just gonna call the police, to be honest…but I found a note this morning.”

After an outbreak of rustling and flickering, Matt reads, “Three – Zero – Nine…three hundred and nine? Miles, do you have any idea what this means?”

Miles shakes his head, dumbfounded. He then realizes that Matt can’t see him. “Never heard of that,” he frowns, “You sure this is a message, not just some random numbers he scratched down?”

“They take up a whole page on his notebook, and here it says on the back that, this was for you.”

“For me.” Miles repeats incredulously. “What-why?”

“How the hell do I know? I’ll send you a picture. If you think of anything, call me, okay? There must be a way to track him down, flight records, credit card purchases, whatever. We didn’t wanna make it to the front-page if Al’s just sorting things out with himself. But at this point I may need to…”

Miles has no idea when Matt hangs up. In the pictures sent, the numbers written repeatedly are, without a doubt, Alex’s handwriting. He had clearly put an excessive amount of pressure on the tip of the pen, puncturing the paper several times. Needless to say, this seems unlike him. Alex always takes care of his notebooks. Besides, there’s indeed Miles’ name on the other side of the paper.

**_Read my mind, Miles. I know you can._ **

Miles hands start to shake. “What do you want from me? ...you fucking bastard.” He murmurs, slowly lying back down, holding the message to his chest. His headache is getting worse. Miles turns off the screen, squeezing his eyes shut.

It’s hard to say whether he feels more worried or angry. And if Miles dares to admit to himself, in the most undignified way, he also feels relieved, hopeful, blindly confident…happy. _Of course Alex would choose to leave him a puzzle to solve. Why not._ After everything, Miles is grateful that Alex did, and he's also dying to know if he can crack it open just like before.

*

“Dance with me?” He startles, only to realize that Mark has put away his apron. His shift is over, and now he’s sitting next to Miles, the bottom of his white coat folded up on his lap. Right now, the bar is unloved. Miles looks around and finds all other stools flipped on the countertop, waiting for the next night to arrive.

Mark carefully examines his loss of focus, “What you wanna hear?”

Miles picks _Never as Tired as When I’m Waking Up._

“Is that so?” Mark releases the touch board, and the speaks in the corner start to sing. He sits back down and tilts his head to the side, handsome facing glowing in the blue light. He looks like a screenshot of some 70s film poster. Mark wonders, “You have sleeping problems, Miles?”

In this hotel, Miles always sleeps like a baby who eats sleeping pills for dinner. Sometimes he wakes up with some serious difficulty, confused about time and space. “No, nothing like that.” He shakes his head, but a sharp pain follows, protesting. Miles blinks and now he sees himself in a different bed, struggling to sit up, with tired eyes and a pounding head.

Miles rubs his eyes, nearly falling off the seat. The scene is gone.

“I saw the song in the playlist, that’s all. It’s a nice tune.” He shrugs.

“I see. You want a slow dance.” Mark concludes. He is entirely wrong, because Miles doesn’t want to dance with him, for fuck’s sake. He doesn’t want Mark’s hand around his waist, doesn’t want his eyes on him when he shatters, doesn’t want to know the taste of his lips.

“It’s not right.” He mutters. Mark leads him to the dance floor anyway, as if he hasn't heard. He twirls Miles round in his fingers, as though Miles is nothing but a puppet in his music box.

“Hey, wait-”

“Oh, no no, no more waiting. Miles, we’re running out of time.” Mark utters a sigh, shushing him. Miles fights to keep his eyes open when Mark’s hands land on his hips. The touch feels scarily familiar. His mind screams no but his body says hell yes and leans willingly towards Mark’s chest. Mark brushes his lips over Miles’ nose, his browbone, then onto the back of his ears. “We shall put colours on your face, some makeup, maybe.” Mark touches his eyelid, his thumb pressing gently into the delicate skin. Miles stands still, both eyes closed, eyeballs rolling nervously underneath. “Miles, my Miles…it will make you look like a fictional character-”

“Don’t say that!” Miles snaps out of the daze, putting some distance between them. “Stop it. These ain’t your words!”

“Not mine,” Mark glances at him encouragingly, uninfluenced by Miles’ outburst. “Are you sure about that, Miles?”

 _Hurry up, just see it. Fucking think of the name!_ Miles argues with his own brain, stepping back, knees buckled with distress. The song has come to an end. Soon, the bar relapses into silence. Miles is left in the void, furious with himself, with someone whose name he can’t recall.

“Don’t look at me,” he sobs out, shoulder blades hitting the wall. “Damnit, go away! I don’t want you here!”

“It’s not polite to lie, Miles.” Mark approaches him. Coldly he smiles, “You can’t keep your eyes off me, remember? From early morning to midnight, you sit in a corner, just…watching.”

Miles hates that he’s right.

“Why are you here, Miles?” he sounds genuinely curious. “Why don’t you just get up and leave?”

“No!” Miles slips on the ground. The marble floor resembles ice under his knees. A helpless mumble bubbles out from his mouth, “Don’t send me away. Let me stay, please…I have to stay here. I’m looking for you! You…you need me.”

Once he says it out loud, Miles has to laugh at himself - _is that so?_ Clearly Mark doesn’t need him. He is distant and unpredictable and all beyond comprehension, but Miles has heard someone calling. His body and soul madly respond to that voice, the phantom in the dark. He knows that he can’t leave this hotel. He’d give whatever it takes to stay.

Mark doesn’t comment on his madness. He takes Miles by the scruff and brings him close. Mark is fully erected in his pants, as if he's only silent because he prefers to shut Miles up this way. Gently but firmly he pushes behind Miles’ grinding teeth, until Miles fights back no more and lets him. Mark fucks his throat in merciful silence. Miles sucks on his cock routinely, embarrassed by the relief he feels.

Just as his jaw start to feel numb, Mark gasps a soft moan and trembles, releasing in his mouth. Miles swallows, only because he worries that he’d as well puke out the half bottle of vodka he drank earlier, if he slightly lowers his head.

“Good boy.” Mark praises, pink lips shining under the artificial light. The pretty features on his face are bleached by sheer indifference. Mark tightens up his pants and slowly kneels down, reaching for Miles’ belt. He orders, “Don’t move, Miles. Here's your reward...”

It doesn’t take long for him to get hard in Mark’s hand, and he figures it won’t take long for Mark to break him permanently either.

+++

“…this person cannot take your call right now, please try later or send…”

“Bloody hell!” Throwing away his phone, Miles collapses on the sofa, face in hands. He would go and dig Alex out from literally anywhere on Earth, but _Alex fucking-can’t-take-your-call Turner_ could literally be anywhere on Earth right now. He has no idea where to start.

There was a time he’s the one Alex would think of first in the middle of an insomnia. Miles had a special ringtone set for him. He didn’t always manage to get them, but he’s always glad that Alex called. Sometimes Miles dialled his number when the night's dark, too. They could talk till the dawn broke. When was the last time Miles spoke to him? His tongue can still taste the bitterness and hurt from their argument, left about a months ago. Why does it have to be him? Alex could easily leave a note to some other friend. Someone who’s closer, easier to reach, and less greedy...

Cutting off the self-pity, Miles heads into Alex’s bedroom, going after a lead. Alex hasn’t been back for a while. The carpet is blanketed by a light layer of dust. He constantly has the impulse to sneeze.

This is the first Miles steps into the room since the beginning of his stay, for all his memories related to her are delicate and too easy to stir.

Alex’s old notebook is on the table. A few pages of paper scatter around on the floor. He recognizes the ink left by Alex’s typewriter. Some random lyrics, some short conversations he recorded when he had visitors. Not a single line mentioned the number 309. Miles moves to the back of the desk. As he’s about to open the drawers and check inside, something catches his foot and next thing he knows, he’s on the floor. Miles coughs in the pile of dust, lying under the desk. He fumbles around and finally finds the culprit.

A cluttering sound of metal thins comes from one of Alex’s tambourines. Miles got this one for him as a Christmas present many years ago.

He trashes it to the wall, taking his frustration all out on that innocent piece of instrument. The tambourine rolls over several times and eventually lies down in a different corner. Miles glares at it, memories about that winter flooding back. He remember that winter vividly, that one, more than any other ones. He remembers drinking on the riverbank. 

_Alex poured whiskey into his thermos flask, so it would look like they were just two young blokes sharing harmless hot tea in this freezing weather. Miles smoked, one cigarette after another. He was planning to quit the following spring, thus the last-minute indulgence. Alex’s eyes caught the streetlight like a fishnet trapping in sardines. He was heavily flushed on the cheeks, probably due to the unpleasant temperature. Maybe Miles shouldn’t have thrown him the thinner jacket._

_“We went skiing with the lads, remember that?” Alex guffawed, touching the rising fog when he spoke. “It was just like tonight…no, maybe a tad colder.”_

_“I broke my arm.” Miles remembered, looking down at his own hand._

_“You broke your arm.” Alex nodded, lashes dropping slightly under the weight of nostalgia. He leaned over, stole the half done cigarrete from Miles, and chewed it into his mouth. There he continued, “You had to do that big turn on the slope. I warned you the snow’s too thick. Shoop – bang - like that. Scared the shit out of me. I thought you broke your neck or something.”_

_“Lucky that they had a doctor in the hotel,” said Miles. He lit another cigarrete. “It’s such a shame. I wanted to go to Switzerland with you, you know, we could go from Fully to Mt Blanc, all the way along the skiing lines. Only took a couple of days.”_

_Alex seemed amused by his exaggeration. “No breaks in town?”_

_“No, no climbing down the mountains. We’d stay there for days and weeks, always, until we become Yetis.” Miles shook with laughter. He then trembled again when a breeze sneaked into his collar. Miles sneezed, and took another sip of the drink. “You and me, the last wild men on the Swiss Alps.”_

_Alex stared at him unabashedly for a few seconds, forgetting about the little flame between his fingers. “Miles,” he whispered quietly. “I wish you didn't get your arm hurt.”_

_After a minute Miles asked, out of nowhere, “Will we ever go skiing again, Alex?”_

_Alex closed his eyes. He finished the last drop in the bottle. It’s not enough to get him drunk, but more than enough to stop him from lying. “I still need to find a nice place in the states, you know, all the mountains are just...they really should work hard on that.”_

_“That’s a ‘NO’ for my question, then.” Miles growled sharply. They both fell into silence._

_“I really wish you didn’t have to go,” he restarted. The indignation in his voice soon dissolved into a plea. “Stay, Al. Christmas is just next week.”_

_Alex shook his head flaccidly. “My flight is due in 4 hours, Miles. Next time, okay? And we can definitely think of another trip to - ”_

_“Definitely sounds bad, let’s just hope for the best.” Miles watched him tentatively as Alex screwed on the cap. The warmth brought to him by alcohol was draining fast, and glaring at Alex made the burning sensation in his stomach unbearably strong. Miles had to turned his head away to focus on the river, on ships and shadows of city lights. He had to be sure, “Do you really fancy a next time, Al?”_

_Alex patted his shoulder gently, his hand colder than Miles had imagined._

_“Come on, Miles.” He suggested, as if he hadn’t heard. “Let’s walk for a little while…”_

_Miles followed him closely. They walked pass a few pedestrians, none of them paid any attention to their direction. Alex himself didn’t pay them much attention either. He was lost in thoughts, pacing down the road slowly, head lolling from side to side. Miles doubted that Alex could neglect the fact that Miles wanted much more than just walking beside him. He wanted to put both of his hands into the pockets of Alex’s jacket, spun him around this way, gave merciless onslaught to his itchy spots and kissed him right after Alex began to laugh. He’d kiss him until they both struggle to breath, and then kiss him again._

_“Should I call us a cab?” Miles checked the time. It was too late. “Your luggage is still at my place. Better hurry.”_

_“Yeah, you’re right.” Alex agreed._

_They went back. Quickly Alex stopped himself another taxi. Miles didn’t follow him to the airport. When he got back up to his empty living room, outside the window, it started to snow._

Miles remembers sitting on the carpeted floor, drinking while Alex was on the flight to LA. How he regretted over the years, for not asking him to stay one more time. If Alex had said no at a second time that night, maybe Miles wouldn’t end up trying again and again in the following years like a proper clown.

Miles shifts onto his side. Suddenly his eyelids become to heavy to lift open.


End file.
